All Chapters of Carrying His Claim: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

I didn’t sleep well that night, or the night after. I lay awake running the numbers Gideon had laid out so plainly — a third of Ashwood’s combined defense, a southern flank that would fall open the moment Thorne’s support wavered — and felt them settle into my chest with the particular weight of facts I couldn’t unlearn no matter how badly some part of me wanted to. I thought, at various points in the dark, of Selene’s rosemary bundle still sitting on my windowsill, of Gideon’s flat, unsparing observation, of the specific quality of Kieran’s silence when his Beta had said it out loud. None of it made for restful thinking.By the third morning, I’d decided the only reasonable response was the one I’d built my entire career on. I got up before dawn, went through my full checklist the way I hadn’t bothered to in weeks — cold water on my face, a walk to the tree line and back, the specific mental discipline of running through every contract’s foundational rule until the words felt solid a

I was crossing the training yard the next morning, headed toward the healer’s wing for my weekly checkup, when I caught sight of Kieran and Gideon near the far fence line, deep enough in conversation that neither of them noticed me approaching. I slowed without quite deciding to, close enough now to catch fragments of what was being said, and something in Gideon’s tone — lighter than the last conversation I’d overheard between them, almost teasing — made me linger a moment longer than strict manners allowed.“You missed the patrol report this morning,” Gideon was saying, arms crossed, something amused tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Third time this week. I had to read it to you twice before you actually heard the part about the eastern rotation.”“I heard it the first time.”“You didn’t, actually. You were somewhere else entirely.” Gideon studied him with the particular patience of a man who’d known someone long enough to read every shift in their attention. “You’ve been somewher

The follow-up scan was scheduled for mid-morning, and I arrived at the healer’s wing early, the way I always arrived early for anything that mattered, sitting in the small waiting alcove with my hands folded neatly in my lap and my professional composure fitted carefully into place before Ottilie ever called me back. The alcove smelled faintly of the same herbs Selene had shown me before the Kindling Rite, and I found myself absurdly grateful for something as small as a familiar scent to hold onto while I waited.I’d done this exact appointment eleven times before, across eleven prior contracts, and I reminded myself of that fact the way I reminded myself of most things lately — a fact I still believed, technically, even as it had started carrying considerably less weight than it used to. Eleven confirmations. Eleven moments of professional satisfaction at a job proceeding exactly as intended, followed by nine months of careful, contained work and a clean handoff at the end of it. I r

I found Selene in the library the next afternoon, curled into her usual window seat with a book open in her lap that she wasn’t reading, the same posture I’d first found her in weeks earlier on my very first evening in this house. Something in the stillness of her struck me differently this time, though I couldn’t immediately name why — the same careful composure, the same unhurried grace, and yet something underneath it that felt, for the first time since I’d known her, faintly effortful rather than entirely natural.“There you are,” she said, looking up, and her smile arrived exactly the way it always did — warm, immediate, entirely welcoming. “I wondered if you’d come find me today, or whether yesterday’s excitement had worn you out completely.”“A little of both.” I settled into the chair across from her, the fire between us low and comfortable, the same easy warmth of a dozen evenings we’d shared in this exact room. “Thank you, by the way. For last night. For steadying me when Ma

I woke to a compound gone quiet in the wrong way — not the ordinary early stillness of a household not yet risen, but the particular, held quality of silence that comes after news has already spread and nobody’s quite found the words to speak it out loud yet. I lay in bed a moment longer than usual, listening to that silence, some old instinct already understanding, before I’d even risen to investigate, that whatever had happened overnight was going to matter considerably more than an ordinary quiet morning ever would.Dessa found me in the kitchen, her hands unsteady around a mug she wasn’t drinking from, and told me before I’d even fully asked.“A patrol found something at the eastern marker post this morning. Left deliberately, not stumbled into.” She set the mug down, untouched. “One of our scouts who went missing eight days ago. Blackmoor sent him back.”Something cold settled in my stomach. “Sent him back how?”Dessa’s expression answered before she found words gentle enough to